"Documentary realism" take on the zombie genre which is a little boring

Rating: 5/10 (5 May 2016)

The zombie genre, honestly, is an overpopulated one. What, with THE WALKING DEAD and numerous recent attempts to cash in on the craze, it's a little hard to separate oneself from the crowd when in the shadow of what George Romero already did. 28 DAYS LATER came at the early end of this recent uptick in zombie films and does manage to differentiate itself, mainly through a straightforward, "realistic" take that recasts zombies as humans infected with a virus. The only problem I found with this approach is that it robs the material of much potential for social commentary. I also found the choice to film on digital video a rather irritating one, giving the film a gritty, but cheap, look. At times, even the dialogue was difficult to make out. I also had took issue with the pacing, as roughly the first half of the film could have been streamlined a little bit in order to get Cillian Murphy's character from the hospital where we find him, to the family meets, and finally to the military base where second half takes place. Quite frankly, the film is kind of boring until he meets other survivors. For me, the second half is where the real meat of the film lies, and you get to see how in the event of a massive traumatic event, humanity reverts to brute (and uncouth) methods of survival. Here, Christopher Eccleston as the base commander, delivers what I think is the best performance of the film. The other cast members do fine, but there was little to latch onto as far as character development was concerned. As for the horror elements, I thought action and gore were well-handled, but the frame-dropping or speed-ramping was a little bit annoying. There was also some tricky editing going on to make things seem more intense than they really were. Some people might like that, but I typically don't. Ultimately, I ended up with about half of a good movie. It's not terrible, but I wasn't terribly impressed with the results either.